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Zionism and Australian Jewry Before 1948: The Battle for Ideological and Communal Supremacy

October 1, 2006 | Peter Medding

The ideological conflict between the Zionists and anti-Zionists revolved around fundamental questions of the nature of the Jewish group on the one hand, and political loyalty to Australia and Britain on the other, and became the fulcrum of a struggle for control of communal institutions, in which the Zionists emerged victorious by the mid-1940s. This enabled Australian Jewry’s representative bodies to press the Australian government to support a Jewish state.

Our Cousins “Down Under” Jews and Australian Politics edited by Geoffrey Brahm Levey and Philip Mendes

March 30, 2006 | Dr. Sarah Schmidt

Geoffrey Brahm Levy, senior lecturer in politics and international relations and coordinator of the Jewish Studies Program at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and Philip Mendes, senior lecturer in social policy and community development at Monash University in Melbourne, have compiled thirteen essays that explore the politics of today’s Australian Jewish community. Although the book makes almost no mention of Australian Jews’ patterns of religious identity and observance, it does provide a multifaceted picture of the group’s political activities and agendas, thereby illuminating a little-known aspect of a Jewish community that is now the tenth largest in the world.